All 23.0 - Tests of Teamwork
Nearly a month was necessary to walk to the site of the village, deep in the jungle. The group had traveled in each other’s bodies for the entire duration, which was much more aggravating for some than others: Cheko was continually horrified by the realities of Ryuji’s existence, and Pierce was nervous and paranoid about somehow offending Clover while in her form, while Clover managed to break Cohen’s amphetamine addiction for him. The most distressing development of all was suffered by Lucca: he inhabited Victor’s body, which seemed to be becoming progressively less human as time progressed and his rune tattoos vanished mysteriously. As far as they could gather, the spell that kept him mortal by binding his mind and body was dissolving now that his mind was no longer in his body. They rushed as fast as they could in the summer heat, hoping that the changes would revert themselves once they finished the trial and were made whole once more. As they traveled, they heard whispers of the Firehawk having risen, and more than one inn they visited had suffered fire damage from vandals; one had been burned to the ground. They found the village was a very small, tribal community: they lived in simple huts, and lived on hunting and gathering in the jungle around them. At the village center was an overgrown pile of rubble that looked to have, at one point, been a building at some point: the temple that was the group’s destination. There seemed to be two races living in the tribe in harmony, one shorter than the other. Exactly what they looked like or what they were was unclear: they all wore robe-like clothing, and plain wooden masks painted white. They spoke a simple language unique to themselves, that Pierce translated using Lucca’s Helm of Comprehend Language. Pierce was directed to the village chief and described their mission to enter the temple to find power to defeat an evil invading force. The overall mood of the party was poor: everyone was sick and tired of not having their own bodies, making them visibly surly, and this combined with their ever-increasing and obvious power made them poignantly intimidating. The chief did not even try to stand in their way: he led them through the overgrowth into the temple. Cress chose to wait outside and keep an eye on Virgil and Itzli, figuring that Pierce’s soft body made him next to useless. The interior was just as overgrown as it was outside. Light peeked through cracks in the stone, and gigantic plants grew in the soil. As Lucca marveled at the size of an onion the size of a wagon wheel, the chief explained that the guardian bird of the temple blessed them with bountiful crops in exchange for sacrifice. The temple appeared to be one large room with a central cylindrical altar, carved like a huge bird creature with an open, upturned beak. Inside the beak was a hole that lead down, but was too small to accept a person; the mirror indicated that the echo was below. The chief said that this statue was the guardian bird, and that they fed it by putting things down its mouth, ranging from vegetables and meat, to rare valuables and people, cut up to fit in the opening. He explained that the temple was from long in the past, and marked the site of a terrible battle; four warriors survived the battle, and that they held keys that could be used to awaken the guardian bird, he said while pointing out four tunnels that had been obscured by foliage, marked by little carvings of people: two men, a dwarf and a woman. Sure enough, there were four large keyholes along the base of the bird altar. When it became clear that the group’s intent was to awaken the bird, the chief quickly evacuated the premises. Picking the tunnel marked with the dwarf at random, the group made their way down it. It was very small and choked with vegetation, and only Cohen, in Cheko’s body, could move through it easily. At the end was a pedestal in front of a wall of carvings, dominated by a large relief of a frowning face. On the pedestal was a large key. After looking it up and down and finding no obvious traps, it was determined that Cohen, being the only one who could easily move, should take the key; everyone else crawled out of the tunnel. They all listened as Cohen muttered, then began to yell. Shooting out of the tunnel seconds later, clutching the key, they saw he was being chased by the face relief, which had pulled itself from the wall as a large hunk of floating stone and was hurling itself repeatedly at the doctor, who had to dodge to avoid getting crushed. When he was free of the tunnel, he threw the key over his shoulder, landing in Pierce’s hands. When the stone turned its attention to him, he immediately threw the offending key to Lucca, who dashed to the altar, dodging the rock. When he jammed it into the base of the statue, the floating rock stopped in its tracks, fell to the ground and rolled back to the tunnel from whence it came. The second tunnel was larger, but even more overgrown, with lots of twists and turns. The terminus was the same as the first, with a key on a pedestal watched by a frowning relief. Calling in Cress, they asked if he could run this tunnel, as he had been training rigorously over the last few months and had proven himself particularly agile. Cheko took his place outside, and Cress willingly accepted the task. With a speed and agility unusual for Pierce’s body, Cress tore down the tunnel with the rock on his heels; he leapt out, dashed up to the altar and jammed in the key, sending the boulder back to its tunnel. Now with a feel for the pattern, Cress and Clover, appearing as Pierce and Cohen, simultaneously ran down the remaining two tunnels: Clover’s angel wings allowed her to fly over the chasms in the first, while Cress easily climbed over and around the obstacles in the second. With the final key slotted in place, the altar shook and rumbled as the group gathered around it. Suddenly, it lashed out, its carved stone arm shooting out and punching Clover violently. Unfurling itself, the altar resolved into a stange, blocky bird-man that attacked the group viciously. Even without their magic, the adventurers’ strength was great: with Clover’s ascendant guidance, the warriors among them lashed at it brutally with their weaponry, quickly reducing the statue to rubble. A gaping hole was left where the altar had once stood, from which an awful smell emanated. Lucca leapt down the hole after ascertaining it wasn’t that deep, landing in a fetid pile of trash. The others climbed down one by one. The echo was located in this room, filled with the sacrifices and refuse of a village over years. Half of the group opted to enter the echo, while those who weren’t well-equipped to handle combat situations at the moment stayed, already sighting some items of magical worth among the trash. Victor, Lucca, Pierce and Clover entered the echo, while the others began to root through the refuse for valuables they could use. The echo took them to a jungle, with no temple in sight. Suddenly, there was a huge crash, followed by an ear-splitting roar. They ran as the trees were ripped up behind them, enveloped by the noise of combat. Once they were far enough away, they took to the air, using Pierce’s dragon rod and the other items they possessed that granted flight. From what they could tell, they were in roughly the same jungle as they had been earlier, but it must have been long in the past: there was a mountain that certainly didn’t exist anymore. The noise was coming from two gargantuan creatures: a three-headed serpent and a crab, both of whose size defied natural bounds. They were locked in combat, and their struggle was flattening the landscape. The four watched with awe and confusion; Lucca in particular yelled at the crab, who not only should not be so large, but who also probably shouldn’t be in a jungle. They wondered what they were supposed to do, because certainly nothing they had could hurt the massive monsters. Eventually, they decided that all they could do was cheer on one of them, since there was little else to be done. Lucca cast Speak with Animals from his wand and flew over to the crab, who they decided should win on the grounds that it was very much an aquatic creature, and maybe it would leave when it was done. Cheering it on, he also used the staff to cast Resist Fire on it, just in case, seeing as how it was really the only thing they had. After a little while, wherein the two animals fought viciously, destroying the landscape, Victor told Clover to inform Lucca that the mountain needed to be destroyed, since it wasn’t there in the future. Dodging the creature’s attacks, she told Lucca, who coached the crab into picking up hunks of mountain and hurling them at the snake. In response, the reptile began spitting fireballs from its three mouths, but the fire glanced off the crab’s shell. Throwing one rock after another, pummeling the serpent, the crab had soon leveled what had once been a mountain. However, the assault had pushed the favour of battle in the crab’s direction, and it wasn’t long before its pincers grasped the snake below where its heads split, throttling it and sending it crashing to the ground, dead. It held up its pincers victoriously, but it did not immediately leave. Yelling to it, Lucca asked what it was doing; its response was ‘I fight’. Eventually, Lucca convinced it to head towards the ocean, hoping that it would be big enough for a crab that size. It seemed pleased with this, and began to scuttle off, its footsteps making the countryside quake. With this, the echo sent them back to the temple. When they returned, they found a pair of white gloves, obviously imbued with powerful magic and ostensibly tied to the echo in some fashion. After collecting as much as they could of use from the muck and rot, they climbed back out, whereupon Pierce’s wand of Prestidigitation was put to good use. Walking towards the exit, Gemini appeared once more, congratulating them on finding and accessing another echo. As they did, they noticed Lucca in Victor’s visibly demonic body, and asked with some curiosity what had happened. Lucca explained with some anger that it was their fault: their spell had broken the one keeping Victor human. It didn’t matter though, he explained, because it would be fine once they swapped back. Gemini looked at each other, then questioned Lucca how it would do that, and why. Lucca flustered a bit, and Gemini apologized to Victor. They hadn’t known, and didn’t mean to break anything. As an apology, they promised to find something else of use. With that, they declared their trial mostly complete; they snapped their fingers, and everyone found themselves wearing a blue, teardrop shaped earring. The fey explained that all they had to do was finish by giving their bodies back; then they would have the item. Pierce and Clover rapidly approached each other; with Gemini instructing them with nods and frowns, they traded earrings and put them on. After a momentary weakness, they found themselves having swapped bodies once more, with Pierce in Cohen’s body and Clover in her own; only Pierce still had an earring. Gemini congratulated them once more, promised to find some sort of apology gift, and vanished. The others quickly began swapping: Victor returned to his body, and was visibly deeply bothered by the fact that he didn’t revert back to his familiar half-elf form. Cheko swapped with Cohen, regaining her body while putting the doctor in Ryuji’s; Pierce reclaimed his body from Cress, giving him Cohen’s. Lucca, concerned about Victor, turned to Ryuji to get his body back; the Yetoman was rather hesitant, unwilling to return to his undead body. Cress’ inquiries were angrily ignored by Lucca, focused on his own body. After a moment of upset insistence on the part of the druid, Ryuji relented, taking Cress’ body and almost immediately returning it to its owner. Finally, Ryuji approached Cohen to make the final swap that would put everyone back in their proper places. However, the doctor refused to switch. He stated his demand calmly and rationally: he did not wish to break up the group or sew dissent, but he would not go back to his body as long as it had the collar on it. Ryuji was stunned, so angry he was. The two argued vehemently for a short time, while the others looked on. Clover interjected at one point on Ryuji’s behalf: this was supposed to be a test of teamwork, and holding someone’s body hostage was awful and certainly not something a teammate would do. Cohen would not relent his position, and eventually Ryuji turned and stormed out. Clover walked away as well, and everyone prepared to leave; there was no reason to stay any longer. Clover declared that they would head towards the flaming pillar, to stop the Firehawk and their cultists from doing any more damage to the land. Between Victor’s stunned introversion and Cohen and Ryuji’s argument, no one had any intention to argue. They had regained their magical powers, so it was a simple matter to fly over the jungle back to the road they had traveled until a few days earlier, before they couldn’t follow it any further. Victor and Ryuji remained sullen, and Cohen respectfully distanced himself from the others; everyone else did their best to keep a positive attitude. They reached an inn, where they decided to spend the night to recover from the outcome of their trial of teamwork. Category:Advent of the All